Elena Rainn

Zach P

Kyrsten Iris

Fede Bonino

_ eshago@uw.edu

Watashi Wa Jigabudesu

Karl Halmos-Westram

lonely loser

Ljsly Bernard

Miguel Barreto Carrillo

Leonel González

Tim M

A race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life.But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

Vinge's masterpieces together at last, in one epic volume.The Hugo Award winning A FIRE UPON THE DEEP and its epic companion novel A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY, set in the same universe but 20,000 years earlier, were benchmarks for SF in the last decade of the 20th century.In FIRE 'Vinge presents a galaxy divided into Zones - regions where different physical constraints allow very different technological and mental possibilities. Earth remains in the "Slowness" zone, where nothing can travel faster than light and minds are fairly limited. The action of the book is in the "Beyond", where translight travel and other marvels exist, and humans are one of many intelligent species. One human colony has been experimenting to find a path to the "Transcend", where intelligence and power are so great as to seem godlike. Instead they release the Blight, an evil power, from a billion-year captivity.' Publisher's WeeklyIn DEEPNESS, 'the story has the same sense of epic vastness despite happening mostly in one isolated solar system. Here there's a world of intelligent spider creatures who traditionally hibernate through the "Deepest Darkness" of their strange variable sun's long "off" periods, when even the atmosphere freezes. Now, science offers them an alternative. Meanwhile, attracted by spider radio transmissions, two human starfleets come exploring--merchants hoping for customers and tyrants who want slaves. Their inevitable clash leaves both fleets crippled, with the power in the wrong hands, which leads to a long wait in space until the spiders develop exploitable technology. Over the years Vinge builds palpable tension through multiple storylines and characters.' Dave Langford

Beginning with a short story appearing in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1978, the publication of Stephen King's epic work of fantasy -- what he considers to be a single long novel and his magnum opus -- has spanned a quarter of a century.Set in a world of extraordinary circumstances, filled with stunning visual imagery and unforgettable characters, The Dark Tower series is King's most visionary feat of storytelling, a magical mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror that may well be his crowning achievement.Book IIn The Gunslinger (originally published in 1982), King introduces his most enigmatic hero, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting, solitary figure at first, on a mysterious quest through a desolate world that eerily mirrors our own. Pursuing the man in black, an evil being who can bring the dead back to life, Roland is a good man who seems to leave nothing but death in his wake.This new edition of The Gunslinger has been revised and expanded throughout by King, with new story material, in addition to a new introduction and foreword.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology and displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you'll understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing" - filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ... and our future.

“Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.”Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.(front flap)

In Bryson's biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

Retired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony on distant Huckleberry. With his wife, former Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, he farms several acres, adjudicates local disputes, and enjoys watching his adopted daughter grow up.That is, until his and Jane's past reaches out to bring them back into the game--as leaders of a new human colony, to be peopled by settlers from all the major human worlds, for a deep political purpose that will put Perry and Sagan back in the thick of interstellar politics, betrayal, and war.

At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five novels from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space."The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat."Life, the Universe and Everything"The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky- so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew."So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak."Mostly Harmless"Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?Also includes the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe".

The fifth novel in James S.A. Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series--now being produced for television by the SyFy Channel!A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price.And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.

spoilers aheadlast week my mom and i had a conversation about God that devolved into an unpleasant argument, with mom saying some things that i found to be ludicrous beyond belief and with me responding with comments that were condescending and offensive. last week i read a book called Ship of Fools; it is a dark and grim science fiction narrative about a colony ship trying to find a new home, written in a polished and straightforward style, and it is has one major concern: the question of evil in a universe created by God. my mom used to be an "existentialist" who eschewed organized religion and it has only been in the past few years that she's found Jesus; her newly found faith has helped her enormously through some tough times. the crew and the passengers on the colony ship Argonos are at different places in their faith, believers &amp; non-believers &amp; those who don't give a crap about such things, all put together in one place, all trying to find something to help them make sense of their lives, to cope.when mom and i talk about God it will ofen lead to talking about why God allows evil to exist, why children have to suffer, what "Evil" actually is... all that fairly typical stuff, conversations that end with an uncomfortable and probably typical dearth of answers and lack of resolution. a survey team from the Argonos explores a new planet they name "Antioch" and there they discover an old colony and the bodies of the colonists - terribly tortured and murdered men, women, and children hung up on hooks; full of horror and confusion and despair, the surveyors flee back to the Argonos. in our conversation last week, mom wanted to talk about Satan, about a revelation she had had about Evil and its origin - she comes from a perspective that sees Evil as a tangible thing, a purely evil angel that falls from the sky or a purely evil human that walks upon the earth; i see evil as something more intangible, as a choice that can be made or as a situation that is allowed to continue or to even exist in the first place. after their horrific experience on Antioch, the Argonos comes across an unsettling abandoned alien ship; strange things happen during and after the exploration of this ship - a contagious feeling of free-floating anomie and depression, even more widespread feelings of dread and loss of faith, attempted murder, suicide, death... are all these things the result of human failing - or something more tangible, some dire threat from within the ship, some unearthly influence?mom follows this televangelist named Joyce Meyer who she connects with due to a shared history of childhood trauma and a shared desire to move past that trauma in order to become empowered, enlightened women who can be defined by their strength; i see Meyer as a study in typical hypocritical excess, using the name and word of God to line her own pockets - although i will acknowledge that there is some truth and some beauty in some of the things she says, even in some of her actions. on the Argonos there is a bishop, a corrupt man and man who secretly has no faith, and yet this character - the novel's "villain", i suppose - is just as often right as he is wrong - in the end he assesses evil as a tangible thing and urges the ship to flee that evil; the other characters, including our hero, have deep doubts about such a thing as "tangible evil" - they see no logic or science in it, and so they rationalize actions that lead them closer to that evil and closer to their own doom.a few days later when i called my mom back to apologize for my harsh words and my sarcastic ridicule, i was inspired to read her a part of Ship of Fools, one that was all about God and "Free Will" and why bad things are allowed to happen; in that passage, a sympathetic clergywoman outlines a key part of her faith: the idea that bad things happen and evil exists simply because God has endowed humanity with Free Will, to choose as they see fit and to react in their own ways to the awful things that the world puts before them - and so to stop these bad things from happening or to somehow make people choose to do good would be to take away that gift of independence and of self-determination... my mom listened to all of this and was satisfied with what she heard, and called the author a "soldier of God". at the end of Ship of Fools, the protagonist and most of the crew and passengers of the Argonos flee their ship to establish a new home on Antioch; our hero remains a resolute atheist, denying the existence of God and of any afterlife, yet somehow finding the idea of something intangible and powerful - a higher power? - to be present in the memory of his love (the clergywoman), in the ability to share and cooperate with others in a new colony that will be built, in the basic concept of hope in what the future may hold, for him as an individual, but more importantly, for him as a part of a larger whole, a community... i would say that this character is my own version of a soldier of God.

In the faraway year of 3126, the 32nd century , things have regressed, in a remote corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, some two -hundred -seventy -four , after the fall of the Hegemony Empire, a young man is sentenced to death, on the once prosperous planet Hyperion, were he was born, for a crime , that was in actuality, self-defense. Raul Endymion, a hunting guide, was very angry, understandably, at a rich, spoiled jerk , he and his friends disobeyed safety rules, endangering him and others, firing wildly, missing the flying ducks, but killing his best friend , a four legged animal, his beloved dog. Throwing the idiot out of his boat and into the filthy swamp, later Raul barely escaping with his own life, the gunman was seeking revenge, shooting at him, instead , the would- be assassin is killed . After a hasty kangaroo trial conviction, authorities here, need the financial benefits hunters bring, from the off worlds, and the former shepherd in childhood, awakes ... the day after his execution...it had been faked , bribes paid and the confused Raul Endymion is taken to the deserted city of Endymion ( his family took that name for themselves). The famous poet who wrote Cantos, Martin Silenus, now forbidden to be read, ( lives on an abandoned university campus) by the new rulers, the Pax, ( greatly influenced by a new Christian Church ) is still alive, modern medicine has preserved the 1,000 -year -old , he looks awful, though, wrinkles over his whole body, faint, weak voice, the carcass, cannot walk, a living fossil, from the distant past, of old, long gone Earth. Martin has an impossible mission, save his "niece" Aenea ( a late friend's daughter) from being eliminated by the Pax, and the Church, the 12 -year -old, will be a threat to them in the future, she is some kind of enigmatic messiah, arriving soon, in the Time Tombs, where the killing machine, the unstoppable, The Shrike's home, is located, but has not been seen for centuries...A flying carpet, right out of an Arabian Nights fantasy will greatly help Raul, and his new companion, Silenus's former servant, the blue man, A. Bettik, well partly human , but more human than many humanoids. A large, lethal Pax Army awaits the duo, but so does The Shrike, unbelievable carnage springs out of the Valley of Death, thousands perish, a miracle occurs and the three now, (Aenea joins the party) flee in the vast confusion, and through a "Farcaster ", (an instant transportation apparatus) then ride a small raft they built, from planet to planet , ice , desert, jungle, and even water worlds, always searching for the next farcaster to find. And the relentlessly pursuing Father Captain, Frederico de Soya, of the Pax, never gives up in hunting them down, where they go, he will follow... on the immense, endless treacherous River Tethys, in a long, perilous journey , their unknown fate, awaits , and still another menace, is lurking about ... A terrific read and highly enjoyable for the adventurous crowd. Dan Simmons is a superb writer, this series shows, that undeniable fact...

Several months have passed, and Roland’s two new tet-mates have become proficient gunslingers. Eddie Dean has given up heroin, and Odetta’s two selves have joined, becoming the stronger and more balanced personality of Susannah Dean. But while battling The Pusher in 1977 New York, Roland altered ka by saving the life of Jake Chambers, a boy who—in Roland’s where and when—has already died. Now Roland and Jake exist in different worlds, but they are joined by the same madness: the paradox of double memories. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie must draw Jake into Mid-World then follow the Path of the Beam all the way to the Dark Tower. But nothing is easy in Mid-World. Along the way our tet stumbles into the ruined city of Lud, and are caught between the warring gangs of the Pubes and the Grays. The only way out of Lud is to wake Blaine the Mono, an insane train that has a passion for riddling, and for suicidal journeys.

Roland and his tet have just returned to the path of the Beam when they discover that they are being followed by a group of inexperienced trackers. The trackers are from the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis, and they desperately need the help of gunslingers. Once every generation, a band of masked riders known as the Wolves gallop out of the dark land of Thunderclap to steal one half of all the twins born in the Callas. When the children are returned, they are roont, or mentally and physically ruined. In less than a month, the Wolves will raid again. In exchange for Roland’s aid, Father Callahan—a priest originally from our world—offers to give Roland a powerful but evil seeing sphere, a sinister globe called Black Thirteen which he has hidden below the floorboards of his church. Not only must Roland and his tet discover a way to defeat the invincible Wolves, but they must also return to New York so that they can save our world’s incarnation of the Dark Tower from the machinations of the evil Sombra Corporation.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen.

The seventh and final installment of Stephen King's The Dark Tower saga is perhaps the most anticipated book in the author's long career. King began this epic tale about the last gunslinger in the world more than 20 years ago; now he draws its suspenseful story to a close, snapping together the last pieces of his action puzzle and drawing Roland Deschain ever closer to his ultimate goal.Alternate cover edition for ISBN-10: 1416524525; ISBN-13: 9781416524526

This is high action, ideas driven noir SF of the highest order. Morgan has already established himself as an SF author of global significance.Takeshi Kovacs has come home. Home to Harlan's World. An ocean planet with only 5 percent of its landmass poking above the dangerous and unpredictable seas. Try and get above the weather in anything more sophisticated than a helicopter and the Martian orbital platforms will burn you out of the sky.And death doesn't just wait for you in the seas and the skies. On land, from the tropical beaches and swamps of Kossuth to the icy, machine-infested wastes of New Hokkaido the hard won gains of the Quellist revolution have been lost. The First Families, the corporations and the Yakuza have a stranglehold on everything.Embarked on a journey of implacable retribution for a lost love, Kovacs is blown off course and into a maelstrom of political intrigue and technological mystery as the ghosts of Harlan's World and his own violent past rise to claim their due. Quellcrist Falconer is back from the dead, they say and hunting her down for the First Families is a savage young Envoy called Kovacs who's been in storage.

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, "By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as 'the living dead'?"Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.

Prepare for a different kind of singularity in this follow-up to the Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight It's the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat. And it’s all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to show itself.Daniel Bruks is a living fossil: a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational, a cat's-paw used by terrorists to kill thousands. Taking refuge in the Oregon desert, he’s turned his back on a humanity that shatters into strange new subspecies with every heartbeat. But he awakens one night to find himself at the center of a storm that will turn all of history inside-out. Now he’s trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system. To his left is a grief-stricken soldier, obsessed by whispered messages from a dead son. To his right is a pilot who hasn’t yet found the man she's sworn to kill on sight. A vampire and its entourage of zombie bodyguards lurk in the shadows behind. And dead ahead, a handful of rapture-stricken monks takes them all to a meeting with something they will only call “The Angels of the Asteroids.”Their pilgrimage brings Dan Bruks, the fossil man, face-to-face with the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought itself.

An enormous tidal wave on the west coast of North America has just killed thousands. Lenie Clarke, in a black wetsuit, walks out of the ocean onto a Pacific Northwest beach filled with the oppressed and drugged homeless of the Asian world who have gotten only this far in their attempt to reach America. Is she a monster, or a goddess? One thing is for sure: all hell is breaking loose.This dark, fast-paced, hard SF novel returns to the story begun in Starfish: all human life is threatened by a disease (actually a primeval form of life) from the distant prehuman past. It survived only in the deep ocean rift where Clarke and her companions were stationed before the corporation that employed them tried to sterilize the threat with a secret underwater nuclear strike. But Clarke was far enough away that she was able to survive and tough enough to walk home, 300 miles across the ocean floor. She arrives carrying with her the potential death of the human race, and possessed by a desire for revenge. Maelstrom is a terrifying explosion of cyberpunk noir by a writer whose narrative, says Robert Sheckley, "drives like a futuristic locomotive." 

Half-Life combines great storytelling in the tradition of Stephen King with intense action and advanced technology to create a frighteningly realistic world whe...

Set in the shattered subway of a post apocalyptic Moscow, Metro 2033 is a story of intensive underground survival where the fate of mankind rests in your hands....

The Mass Effect trilogy is a science fiction adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life forms and mysterious uncharted planets. In this d...

Episode One is an all-new episode created by Valve that extends the Half-Life 2 single player adventure. The player reprises his role of Dr. Gordon...

[Metacritic's 2004 PC Game of the Year] By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiven...

Dead Space 3 focuses on Isaac Clarke and merciless soldier John Carver who embark on a journey through space to discover the source of the Necromorph outbreak....

ODST returns players to familiar ground on a vital, top-secret mission. The gripping story, cooperative campaign and new multiplayer content will have H...

In a desperate attempt to keep a conquering alien race called the Covenant from finding Earth, you--a cybernteically enhanced soldier representing the peak of h...

The sequel to F.E.A.R. continues the original game's spine-tingling supernatural suspense story of an escalating paranormal crisis that threatens to destroy a m...

Approach each assassination with your own unique style. Use shadow and sound to your advantage to traverse silently through levels unseen by enemies, or attack...

Human Revolution you play Adam Jensen, a security specialist, handpicked to oversee the defense of one of America's most experimental biotechnology...

Reload, rev up and ride out. The new Tournament is faster, higher and meaner. Land and air based vehicles take combat to a new level; while an arsenal of new we...

Set approximately 10 years after the events of the original BioShock, the halls of Rapture once again echo with sins of the past. Along the Atlantic coastline,...

Hero Isaac Clarke returns for another heart-pounding adventure, taking the fight to the Necromorphs in this thrilling action-horror experience. New tools to gru...

With Far Cry 3, players step into the shoes of Jason Brody, a man alone at the edge of the world, stranded on a mysterious tropical island. In this savage parad...

Episode Two is the second in a trilogy of new games created by Valve that extends the award-winning and best-selling Half-Life adventure. As Dr. Go...

The original Half-Life 2 - The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds h...

Going beyond "run and gun corridors," "monster-closet AIs" and static worlds, BioShock creates a living, unique and unpredictable FPS experience. After your pla...

Initially conceived as a floating symbol of American ideals at a time when the United States was emerging as a world power, Columbia is sent to distant shores w...

Valve is working on a full-length sequel to its award-winning, mind-bending puzzle action game for the Xbox 360 and PC....

Three separate but parallel stories of the U.S mortgage housing crisis of 2005 are told. Michael Burry, an eccentric ex-physician turned one-eyed Scion Capital hedge fund manager, has traded traditional office attire for shorts, bare feet and a Supercuts haircut. He believes that the US housing market is built on a bubble that will burst within the next few years. Autonomy within the company allows Burry to do largely as he pleases, so Burry proceeds to bet against the housing market with the banks, who are more than happy to accept his proposal for something that has never happened in American history. The banks believe that Burry is a crackpot and therefore are confident in that they will win the deal. Jared Vennett with Deutschebank gets wind of what Burry is doing and, as an investor believes he too can cash in on Burry's beliefs. An errant telephone call to FrontPoint Partners gets this information into the hands of Mark Baum, an idealist who is fed up with the corruption in the financial industry. Baum and his associates, who work at an arms length under Morgan Stanley, decide to join forces with Vennett despite not totally trusting him. In addition to Burry's information, they further believe that most of the mortgages are overrated by the bond agencies, with the banks collating all the sub-prime mortgages under AAA packages. Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley, who are minor players in a $30 million start-up garage company called Brownfield, get a hold of Vennett's prospectus on the matter. Wanting in on the action but not having the official clout to play, they decide to call an old "friend", retired investment banker Ben Rickert, to help out. All three of these groups work on the premise that the banks are stupid and don't know what's going on, while for them to win, the general economy has to lose, which means the suffering of the general investor who trusts the financial institutions. That latter aspect may not sit well with Baum. Some of these assumptions may be incorrect and may be far more manipulative than they could have ever imagined, which in turn may throw curves into the process.

Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's year dug in with the Second Platoon in one of Afghanistan's most strategically crucial valleys reveals extraordinary insight into the surreal combination of back breaking labor, deadly firefights, and camaraderie as the soldiers painfully push back the Taliban.

2010 documentary film about the Afghanistan war directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger

McMurphy has a criminal past and has once again gotten himself into trouble and is sentenced by the court. To escape labor duties in prison, McMurphy pleads insanity and is sent to a ward for the mentally unstable. Once here, McMurphy both endures and stands witness to the abuse and degradation of the oppressive Nurse Ratched, who gains superiority and power through the flaws of the other inmates. McMurphy and the other inmates band together to make a rebellious stance against the atrocious Nurse.

After his death sometime in his 43rd year, suburbanite Lester Burnham tells of the last few weeks of his life, during which he had no idea of his imminent passing. He is a husband to real estate agent Carolyn Burnham and father to high school student Jane Burnham. Although Lester and Carolyn once loved each other, they now merely tolerate each other. Typical wallflower Jane also hates both her parents; the three suffer individually in silence in their home life. Jane tries to steer clear of both her parents. Carolyn, relatively new to the real estate business, wants to create the persona of success to further her career, aspiring to the professional life of Buddy Kane, the king of the real estate business in their neighborhood. Lester merely walks mindlessly through life, including at his job in advertising. His company is downsizing, and he, like all the other employees, has to justify his position to the newly hired efficiency expert to keep his job. Things change for Lester when he falls in love at first sight with Jane's more experienced classmate, Angela Hayes. Both Janie and Angela can see Lester's sexual infatuation with Angela, who courts such attention from any man as a sign that she is model material, she having once appeared in Seventeen and is a career to which she aspires. Lester's infatuation with Angela gives him a reenergized view on life, where he openly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks about what he does, anyone except Angela. This infatuation coincides with the Fittses moving in next door: homophobic disciplinarian US Marine Colonel Frank Fitts who rules the house with a military fist (that fist being both figurative and literal), his semi-comatose wife Barbara Fitts, and their bright and quietly subversive 18-year-old son Ricky Fitts, who openly abides by his father's rules while behind the scenes lives by his own quite different perspective. Much like Lester's infatuation, Ricky immediately becomes infatuated with Jane; he considers girls like Angela as ordinary. The entry of Angela and the Fittses into the Burnhams' lives ultimately leads to each of the players confronting what is truly in his or her heart.

The film follows three young men and their time spent in the French suburban "ghetto," over a span of twenty-four hours. Vinz, a Jew, Saïd, an Arab, and Hubert, a black boxer, have grown up in these French suburbs where high levels of diversity coupled with the racist and oppressive police force have raised tensions to a critical breaking point. During the riots that took place a night before, a police officer lost his handgun in the ensuing madness, only to leave it for Vinz to find. Now, with a newfound means to gain the respect he deserves, Vinz vows to kill a cop if his friend Abdel dies in the hospital, due the beating he received while in police custody.

THIS SUMMARY CONTAINS SPOILERS. - In London, the Russian pregnant teenager Tatiana arrives bleeding in a hospital, and the doctors save her baby only. The Russian descendant midwife Anna Khitrova finds Tatiana's diary written in Russian language in her belongings and decided to find her family to deliver the baby, she brings the diary home and ask her uncle Stepan to translate the document. Stepan refuses, but Anna finds a card of a restaurant owned by the Russian Semyon inside the diary and she visits the old man trying to find a lead to contact Tatiana's family. When she mentions the existence of the diary, Semyon immediately offers to translate the document. However, Stepan translates part of the diary and Anna discovers that Semyon and his sick son Kirill had raped Tatiana when she was fourteen years old and forced her to work as prostitute in a brothel of their own. Further, Semyon is the dangerous boss of the Russian mafia "Vory v Zakone", jeopardizing the safety of Anna and her family. Meanwhile, Semyon's driver Nikolai Luzhin gets close to Kirill and Semyon, climbing positions in the criminal organization, but he helps Anna, her family and the baby.

Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan. He does so by buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and he comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. As a result, his product is superior to what is currently available on the street and his prices are lower. His alliance with the New York Mafia ensures his position. It is also the story of a dedicated and honest policeman, Richie Roberts, who heads up a joint narcotics task force with the Federal government. Based on a true story.

In the dystopian world of 2027 London, humans have been incapable of reproducing for 18 year for an unknown reason, meaning the imminent extinction of the species. Britain is the one remaining civilized society on the planet, which has resulted in people wanting to migrate there, so it has become a police state to handle the immigrants, who are placed into refugee camps. Lowly government bureaucrat Theo Faron, once an activist, is approached by the Fishes, deemed a terrorist group, led by his ex-wife Julian Taylor, whom he hasn't seen in almost 20 years, since their marriage disintegrated after their infant son Dylan's death during the 2008 flu pandemic. Although the Fishes did use terrorist means in their on-going revolution against the state in the fight for immigrant rights, Julian vows that they now garner support solely by speaking to the people, and she wants Theo to use his connections to get transit papers for a young immigrant woman named Kee who needs to get to the coast. Although initially reluctant to do it because of the difficulty, Theo is able to grant Julian this favor, however with the change that he now needs to accompany Kee on her journey. As Theo and Kee progress on that journey, Theo learns more and more about what's going on, including the reason that Kee needs to get to the coast, the fact that no one in the group knows if their end destination even exists, and that his and Kee's lives are in greater danger than he believed when they started the journey. But Theo's sole mission becomes to help Kee at any cost for the survival of the species.

Following a truck hijack in New York, five criminals are arrested and brought together for questioning. As none of them are guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police. The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt. It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze?

Protagonist Alex DeLarge is an "ultraviolent" youth in futuristic Britain. As with all luck, his eventually runs out and he's arrested and convicted of murder. While in prison, Alex learns of an experimental program in which convicts are programmed to detest violence. If he goes through the program, his sentence will be reduced and he will be back on the streets sooner than expected. But Alex's ordeals are far from over once he hits the streets of Britain..

After Black September's assassination of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Prime Minister Golda Meir okays a covert operation to hunt down and kill all involved. A team of five gathers in Switzerland led by Avner, a low-level Mossad techie whose father was a war hero and whose wife is pregnant. It's an expendable team, but relying on paid informants, they track and kill several in Europe and Lebanon. They must constantly look over their shoulders for the CIA, KGB, PLO, and their own sources. As the body count mounts -- with retribution following retribution -- so do questions, doubts, and sleepless nights. Loyalties blur. What does it mean to be a Jew?

While exploring uncharted wilderness in 1823, legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass sustains injuries from a brutal bear attack. When his hunting team leaves him for dead, Glass must utilize his survival skills to find a way back home while avoiding natives on their own hunt. Grief-stricken and fueled by vengeance, Glass treks through the wintry terrain to track down John Fitzgerald, the former confidant who betrayed and abandoned him.

2015 film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is a widower who holds onto his prejudices despite the changes in his Michigan neighborhood and the world around him. Kowalski is a grumpy, tough-minded, unhappy old man who can't get along with either his kids or his neighbors. He is a Korean War veteran whose prize possession is a 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in mint condition. When his neighbor Thao Lor (Bee Vang), a young Hmong teenager under pressure from his gang member cousin, tries to steal his Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Drawn against his will into the life of Thao's family, Kowalski is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that infest their neighborhood.

This is England: Mods, New Romantics, and Skinheads are the major youth sub-cultures of this very English summer of 1983 and young 12-year-old Shaun is left wandering aimlessly alone and lost during the start of his school holidays, until his chance meeting with Woody and his fun and friendly Skinhead pack. Finding a new lease of life; girls, parties, Ben Sherman shirts, Doc Martin boots and shaven hairstyles young Shaun is welcomed, life during this summer holiday has got a whole lot better. That is until Combo arrives on the scene bitter, dangerous, racist, militant and psychotic life for young Shaun has just approached his first major crossroads. This is England is a look back at the early eighties of British working-class life through the eyes of young Shaun and his new gang, and dealing with the bitterness of outside influences such as racism and xenophobia, of mass unemployment and the fall out of the Falkland's War; Thatcher's Britain: Did we ever have it so good? When you see Shaun, ask Him.

Ronin is the Japanese word used for Samurai without a master. In this case, the Ronin are outcast specialists of every kind, whose services are available to everyone - for money. Dierdre (undoubtedly from Ireland) hires several Ronin to form a team in order to retrieve an important suitcase from a man who is about to sell it to the Russians. After the mission has been completed successfully, the suitcase immediately gets switched by a member of the team who seems to work into his own pocket. The complex net of everyone tricking everyone begins to surface slowly, and deadly...

In the wake of a devastating terrorist attack on a slow New Orleans ferry, the A.T.F. special agent, Doug Carlin, joins an experimental top-secret government program to find the bomber. Designed to bend the very fabric of time, this state-of-the-art technology enables the user to observe a detailed representation of what happened four days and six hours in the past, tracking the target's every move prior to the attack. However, the man responsible for the deadly explosion is bound to strike again. Can Carlin figure out who he is, when he is always precisely four days behind?

In 1965, while bombing Laos in a classified mission, the propeller plane of the German-American US Navy pilot Dieter Dengler is hit and crashes in the jungle. Dieter is arrested by the peasants, tortured by the Vietcong and sent to a prisoner camp, where he meets five other mentally deranged prisoners and guards. He becomes close to Duane and organizes an escape plan; however, the unstable Gene opposes to Dieter's plan. When they discover that there is no more food due to the constant American bombings in the area and their guards intend to kill them, Dieter sets his plan in motion. However, an unexpected betrayal splits the group and Dieter and Duane find that the jungle is their actual prison.

This action thriller follows LA cabbie Max Durocher, the type of person who can wax poetic about other people's lives, which impresses U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Annie Farrell, one of his fares, so much that she gives him her telephone number at the end of her ride. Although a dedicated man as seen through the efficiency in which he does his work, he can't or won't translate that eloquence into a better life for himself. He deludes himself into believing that his now twelve year cabbie job is temporary and that someday he will own his own limousine service. He even lies to his hospitalized mother that he already owns one, with a further lie that he tells her as such primarily to make her happy, rather than the truth which is that he won't do anything to achieve that dream. One night, Max picks up a well dressed man named Vincent, who asks Max to be his only fare for the evening. For a flat fee of $600, plus an extra $100 if he gets to the airport on time - Vincent wants Max to drive him to five stops that evening. Max somewhat reluctantly agrees. Max learns the hard way at their first stop when a body falls from a third story apartment window and lands dead on top of his cab that Vincent is a contract hit man. Vincent's main goal, as per his current contract, is to kill five people, one at each of the stops, but he will not let others get in the way of that goal, even if it means killing them, including Max. As Vincent forces Max to continue driving him for the evening, Max tries slyly at every turn to take back control of his life from Vincent, especially when Max learns of one of the names on Vincent's hit list. Meanwhile, LAPD narcotics detective, Ray Fanning, and ultimately the FBI get involved when Vincent's first victim is associated with a case in which Ray is working undercover. Ray is able to piece together information which makes him hot on Max and Vincent's tail.

A convert to Islam sends the U.S. government a tape showing him in three nondescript storage rooms, each of which may contain a nuclear bomb set to detonate in less than a week. Helen Brody, an FBI agent in L.A., is tasked with finding the bombs while a CIA "consultant," known as H, interrogates the suspect who has allowed himself to be caught. The suspect, whose wife and children have left him and disappeared, seems to know exactly what the interrogation will entail. Even as H ratchets up the pressure, using torture over Brody's objection, the suspect doesn't crack. Should H do the unthinkable, and will Brody acquiesce? Is any Constitutional principle worth possible loss of life?

The series follows the life of anti-social, pain killer addict, witty and arrogant medical doctor Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) with only half a muscle in his right leg. He and his team of medical doctors try to cure complex and rare diseases from very ill ordinary people in the United States of America.

A modern take on the cases of Sherlock Holmes, with the detective now living in New York City.

Set in the 1980s, this series dramatizes the personal computing boom through the eyes of a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy whose innovations directly confront the corporate behemoths of the time. Their personal and professional partnership will be challenged by greed and ego while charting the changing culture in Texas' Silicon Prairie.

Ex-cop and recovering alcoholic Hank Dolworth partners with his best friend, former criminal Britt Pollack, in an unlicensed private investigation business.

Hank Moody- a self loathing, narcissistic author struggles to overcome writer's block while balancing his occasional drug use, alcoholism, and borderline sex addiction all the while trying to get back together with his girlfriend and raise his teenage daughter.

Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds is a former galactic war veteran who is the captain of the transport ship "Serenity". Mal and his crew, ensign Zoe Alleyne Washburne; Zoe's husband, pilot Hoban 'Wash' Washburne; muscular mercenary Jayne Cobb; young mechanic Kaylee Frye; former Alliance medical officer Simon Tam; his disturbed teenage sister River (both on the run from the interplanetary government "The Alliance"); the beautiful courtesan Inara Serra; and preacher Shepherd Book do any jobs, legal or illegal, they can find as the Serenity crew travels across the outskirts of outer space.

It's been 40 years since the 12 colonies of mankind have heard from their progeny, the Cylons -- robotic creatures who rose up and declared war on their masters, then disappeared. In a sudden, devastating strike, the Cylons return and lay waste to the colonies, aided by human-looking Cylon variants and an unwitting fifth columnist. The attack forces Commander William Adama to call into action his museum-piece warship, the Battlestar Galactica, and soon its company of hotshot fighter pilots is blasting away at the invaders. But their best efforts can't prevent the colonies' obliteration. Fleeing the Cylon genocide, the Galactica leads a rag-tag fleet of survivors on a lonely quest to find humanity's fabled 13th colony -- a planet known as Earth.

Meet the wildly dysfunctional Bluth family. This family was once at the height of real estate development in Orange County, California. But when the family business - the Bluth Company - goes bust, they're suddenly found penniless with their assets frozen. They move into their last remaining asset - the model home left over from their latest housing tract. Their luxury vehicles are replaced with a reminder of the family's former wealth: 'the stair car that accompanied their private jet'. The patriarch of the family is George Bluth - he's now in prison, and loving every minute of it. His wife Lucille and daughter Lindsay are spoiled socialites who can't handle getting kicked out of family restaurants. His son Buster is in his mid 30's and lives at home. His son George Oscar Bluth is a magician who started a group to get magicians to be taken seriously, and gets kicked out when his own tricks are revealed. Lindsay is married to a man named Tobias Funke, once a psychiatrist, who decides to become an actor. The only sane member of the family: Michael Bluth, along with his son George Michael, want nothing to do with the family business. But one bizarre circumstance after another keeps Michael and George Michael from leaving their eccentric family.

Nine year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she's competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting. Based on the book by Walter Tevis.

Leslie Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat in an Indiana Parks and Recreation Department, hopes to beautify her town (and boost her own career) by helping local nurse Ann Perkins turn an abandoned construction site into a community park. However, what should be a fairly simple project is stymied at every turn by oafish bureaucrats, selfish neighbors, governmental red tape, and a myriad of other challenges. Leslie's colleague Tom Haverford, who delights in exploiting his position for personal gain, is as likely to undermine her efforts as to help her, while her boss, Ron Swanson, is adamantly opposed to government in any form, even though he's a bureaucrat.

A young woman is murdered in a small Pennsylvania town. On the case is Detective Sergeant Mare Sheehan, a highly skilled crime investigator. She has spent all of her life in Easttown and knows everybody in it. However, her life is dark and troubled, due largely to the recent death of her son.

Under the papacy of Sir John Brannox under the name of John Paul III, Vatican tries to clean its good name after a series of sexual scandals that jeopardized the institution itself. But an unexpected trouble threatens John Paul III when Lenny Belardo, the previous Pope Pius XIII who was in a coma from nine months ago after to suffer a heart attack while he was celebrating a mass, wakes up to claim his place as the legitimate Pope of Rome. The news about Pius XIII's comeback shocks the Christianity, turning the admiration of millions of believers in true idolatry for the returned Pope. Given the unusual situation of two Popes in the Vatican at the same time, it unleashes an inner war between Pius XII and John Paul III, the first to recover his power, and the second to keep it.

Young and charming, newly elected Pius XIII, aka Lenny Belardo, is the first American Pope in history. His ascension appears to be the result of a simple, effective media strategy implemented by the College of Cardinals. In the Vatican, however, the prevailing wisdom is the church's leaders have chosen a mysterious figure as their guiding force. And Pius XIII proves to be the most mysterious and contradictory of them all. As Belardo begins his reign, he is stubbornly resistant to the Vatican stewards, instead relying on Sister Mary to serve as his chief adviser. While she urges him to focus on leading his billion followers, the young pope shows little interest in making himself known, either to the College of Cardinals or to the masses. The 10-episode drama series stars Jude Law in the title role and Diane Keaton as Sister Mary, a nun from the U.S. now living in Vatican City.

2016 Italian-Spanish-American-British-French television miniseries

A cocaine shipment makes its way to Europe, starting from the moment a powerful cartel of Italian criminals decides to buy it, to its journeys through Mexico, to its shipment across the Atlantic Ocean.

crime drama television series created by Stefano Sollima, Leonardo Fasoli and Mauricio Katz

In this concept drama, each season takes place within one 24 hour period. Day 1: Jack Bauer is the head of field ops for an elite team of CTU agents who uncover an assassination plot targeting Presidential nominee David Palmer. Meanwhile, Jack's strained marriage to his wife, Teri, is pushed to the brink by the sudden disappearance of their troubled teenage daughter. What will the next 24 hours hold?

John Tavner doesn't really fit in with his quirky colleagues at the industrial piping corporation where he works. They don't really know much about him, but what they don't realize is that his life has been anything but mundane. To prevent Iran from going nuclear, he has assumed a fake persona as an average businessman when in reality he is actually a highly skilled intelligence officer, who took the piping job because of the routine business trips to Luxembourg, and because the job is secluded and too dull to be noticed. Unfortunately for him a European cop is at his heels trying to discover who he is, his incessantly grim and nervous coworker Mr. Icabod has figured out that he isn't who he says, and Steven, a chubby employee with a recent brain injury, is starting to remember a horrible act which John may have inflicted.

Dr. Cal Lightman teaches a course in body language and makes an honest fortune exploiting it. He's employed by various public authorities in various investigations, doing more when the police etc. fail to go the extra mile. So he can afford to constitute a team of his own, which like clients and others has to put up with his mind-games.

A law school graduate becomes the protégée of a successful high-stakes litigator.

American legal thriller television series

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